AbigailII:I tested it ... look, natural human tendency will be to jump into crossing out those sets that have 2 or even 3 same digits ... this way many other categories would be left behind (undeveloped) ...in this case the second player will have a chance to open many more categories , and force the first one to run behind him/her ...if the first player chooses to open 3 different categories at the very start, the second one can immediately try to find a set that gives him/her advantage in one of those freshly open categories ...
Running for 5 secured stones can be risky since it can requires ca 3 moves ... running as a first player for different categories is also risky since the second player can immediately follow you and double and even tripple you scores in new categories ...
As you can see there is more into the strategy than it may look ...as the game develops there are other strategic moves like blocking certain areas of the board, imprisoning certain digits etc ...
You see Abigail, the more categories you open (getting more different digits) the more shallow your score will be in each category ... the second player can easily control those numbers and a) run for 5 secured stones or b) tie with your low score in other categories ... even if the first player is on attacking side, the second one is on controlling side ... every board will be different and it would be impossible to predict anything ...
I know you would have fun with this one.
Thanks for your input.
Andy.